On the Rocks

by Mia Gold

  She had too many questions and absolutely no answers. All she knew was that she had nowhere to run that would be safe. If they had tracked her down here, they could track her anywhere.

  And she still had a murder to solve, otherwise she might see the inside of a Bahamian prison before she settled down for a good long stretch in a U.S. federal prison.

  “Here we go,” the cabbie said. He had stopped in front of a greasy spoon two blocks from her house.

  “I didn’t say to …” Ruby stopped herself, remembering that she had told the driver to take her here and not to her house, in case it was being watched.

  She paid. The driver pointed at Zoomer.

  “He never give you trouble?”

  She shook her head and smiled sadly. “He’s one of the only people who doesn’t.”

  Ruby took a circuitous route to her house, pausing in the shadows and studying each street as she did so. Zoomer kept silent and watchful too. She felt reassured by his company.

  She took her time. If Tim was going to follow her home, she wanted him to get there before her, so she could surprise him and not the other way around.

  Now that she’d had some time to sort out her thoughts, she could feel reasonably certain of a few things.

  First, he didn’t want to kill her. While she had taken care to guard her head, he had never even tried for it. And he had actually stopped her head from hitting that brick wall.

  Second, he wasn’t working with the cops, at least not yet. Otherwise they would have slapped cuffs on her the instant she walked into the police station. Now that she had gotten away from him, that might change.

  Third, he was here on his own for some reason. Knowing her abilities, he would have come with backup if he had been working for some larger agency. Tim was a good fighter, but she was slightly better. Her lack of practice in the ring, coupled with his avoidance of her main weak spot, had made it an even match, until Zoomer leapt out of nowhere to change the equation. She reached up and scratched the monkey’s back.

  So as long as he didn’t go to the cops, she could probably handle him.

  If he didn’t go to the cops.

  If he didn’t know where she lived and used that to get a jump on her.

  If she didn’t turn out to be completely wrong and Tim decided to simply blow her away or bring in American backup to capture her.

  Too many ifs …

  Once she felt reasonably sure her neighborhood wasn’t being haunted by a ghost from her past, she snuck around behind her house and jumped the fence, Zoomer leaping over it easily and waiting, silent and wide-eyed on the other side, watching her clamber over.

  She managed to do this silently enough that she didn’t disturb her nosy neighbor Mrs. Strapp, and slipped through the back door.

  Zoomer scampered inside, at ease once again. That made Ruby relax too. The monkey was familiar with her house, having stayed over plenty of times, and if he had smelled a stranger he would have let out a screech.

  Without turning on the lights, she pulled a bowl out of the kitchen cupboard, filled it with a few teaspoons of rum, and set it on the floor. Zoomer clapped his hands and started lapping it up. She took a swig herself and tucked the bottle away in a cabinet that had a lock on it.

  The first time she had brought Zoomer over for the night, she’d woken to find he had fetched her bottle from an unlocked cupboard and drunk himself to a stupor. A hefty veterinarian’s bill and a stern lecture from the veterinarian himself made her go out and buy baby locks for the cupboards.

  The second time he stayed over, the little lush had watched how she opened the baby locks and snuck into the cupboard while she had been asleep.

  The veterinarian had not been pleased by having to pump the monkey’s stomach twice in the same week.

  So she had bought a combination lock, and made very sure that Zoomer didn’t see the combination. She didn’t put it past him to figure out how to use it.

  Once the bottle of Bahamian Gold was safely secured, she crouched down by her little furry friend.

  “Got to go, buddy. You stay here and hold the fort. It’s not safe for you to go where I’m going.” She rose. Zoomer looked at her. Although only a little light filtered through the back windows from the city outside, she could see the confusion on his little humanlike face.

  “It’s not safe for me either,” she added.

  Because now she had to go to the Maze, the most dangerous place in Nassau. Richard Wainwright had gone down there. Maybe he got killed there. It was dangerous enough for locals, potentially fatal for a stupid white guy who thought his money could buy him anything. Maybe he got killed there and dumped behind the Pirate’s Cove. Maybe she could find out what had happened to him.

  If anyone down there is willing to talk to me.

  If they’re willing to testify to the cops.

  And if I don’t end up in a dumpster too.

  Too many ifs, once again.

  Ruby hesitated, standing stock-still in the darkness of her kitchen. Zoomer stood up as straight as he could, ignoring the rum for a moment, a curious trill coming from his throat.

  “Got to. No choice.”

  Ruby turned and slipped out the door. A tap on the windowpane made her look back after taking only a step across her back yard.

  Zoomer stood at the window, a little paw pressed against the grimy glass.

  Ruby stepped over to the window, put her hand against the glass next to his, then turned and was gone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” the driver asked.

  The taxi trundled through potholed streets dimly lit by only a few streetlights. Only about one in four of the lights worked, the rest either broken or destroyed. It was hard to tell for sure as Ruby craned her neck to look out the back window of the cab, but it looked like some had been shot out.

  “Only a little further now,” Ruby said.

  The taxi driver, an older man with a salt-and-pepper beard and worry lines on his face that were deepening by the minute, glanced over his shoulder at her.

  “A few more blocks and we’ll be in the Maze.”

  Ruby said nothing. She had been vague with this driver, because the last three drivers who had given her a lift had dropped her on the sidewalk after she told them where she wanted to go.

  “You shouldn’t be in this neighborhood,” he muttered. “It’s dangerous.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  Just because I have boobs doesn’t mean I can’t fight.

  “Famous last words. You can’t handle yourself in this neighborhood. Hell, we go much further and I won’t be able to handle myself. You got someone meeting you? I’m dropping you off at a house, right?”

  “Just drive. We’re almost there,” she said, her irritation growing. He’d been asking “are we there yet” with the regularity of bored kids on a family road trip.

  “Look,” he said, slowing the car. “I need to know where I’m taking you. This is too damn close to the Maze for my comfort. You do know what the Maze is, don’t you?”

  Ruby sighed. “Yes, I know what the Maze is.”

  “Whoever you’re going to meet could meet you in a nicer place, couldn’t they?”

  “No.”

  I seriously doubt they have blood sports in the basement of the Coast of Dreams.

  The older man glanced over his shoulder again.

  “It’s drugs, isn’t it?”

  She wondered how he would react if she told him she was investigating the murder of a tourist so the cops didn’t frame her for the crime. That probably wouldn’t go well.

  “It’s not drugs.”

  “Look, I don’t mess with that stuff, but I know people, all right? They can get you whatever you want. Let me take you there. It will be safer. No extra charge.”

  Ruby smiled. This guy reminded her of an older version of Kristiano.

  They drove in silence for another block.

  “We there yet?” the taxi d
river asked.

  “How many times are you going to ask that?”

  “Are we there yet?” The taxi driver sounded almost as annoyed as she felt. Almost.

  “Just three more blocks.”

  “Three more blocks is the Maze.”

  Ruby sighed. Here we go. “I know.”

  The taxi screeched to a halt. A scrawny woman emerged from the shadows, wearing an overcoat that was open to reveal a G-string and nothing else.

  “Get out of here, we don’t want you!” the driver shouted at the woman, who gave him the finger and disappeared back into the shadows.

  The driver gave a quick look around to make sure no one else was approaching. Ruby did too.

  “I’m not driving you to the Maze.”

  “I need to go there. I’m a trained martial artist. I can—”

  “You can’t do nothing, not in that place. I don’t care how many black belts you got.”

  “Look, I need to—”

  “To do what? Get yourself killed? Why don’t you jump off a building like normal people?”

  “If you don’t want to drive me, just let me out here.”

  “No. You’re crazy! I don’t want you on my conscience.”

  The taxi driver revved the engine and made a tight turn, nearly running over a mangy dog before accelerating back the way they came.

  “Hey!” Ruby shouted.

  “I’m taking you back to the decent part of town. No charge.”

  “Take me where I told you!”

  “No!”

  “Fine. Let me out here.” The last thing she needed tonight was some random guy playing white knight.

  “You deaf? I said no!”

  Ruby looked out the back window. They had already gone a block.

  “Damn it, I told you to let me out.”

  The taxi driver ignored her.

  This was one of the many unlicensed cabs that worked the streets in the poorer areas of Bahamas at night, basically a rattling old car the owner used to make some extra money after his day job. That meant that, unlike regular cabs, there was no partition between the front seat and the back.

  Ruby took advantage of that by hopping into the front.

  “What are you doing?” the cabbie demanded.

  “Stop this car!” Ruby grabbed the steering wheel and tried to steer the cab to the side of the road. The cabbie struggled, but Ruby was stronger. So the cabbie tried a different tactic and tried to pry her hands off the wheel.

  He yanked on them and the car wobbled across the lane, then his grip slipped and his elbow slammed into Ruby’s forehead.

  Ruby saw a flare of light and felt a spark of pain that seemed to encompass her entire being. The light dimmed to darkness, but the pain remained. A ringing sound pierced her skull like a dentist’s drill. A warbled, hollow voice that sounded a thousand miles away was saying something.

  “I’m so sorry! Are you OK?”

  The interior of the cab slowly came back into view. Ruby found herself hunched over, holding her head in both hands.

  “I didn’t mean to hit you. It was an accident.”

  The doctor looked down at her from beside the bed. Serious. Concerned.

  “You must avoid any further head trauma. Even a moderate blow could kill you. I’m afraid your career as a fighter is over.”

  Your career is over …

  Your career is over …

  Ruby raised her head, blinking. The cab was parked by the curb in the middle of a puddle of light cast by a streetlamp. A man sauntered by. A convenience store was open a few yards further on. She read the sign. No double vision. No blurriness. Thank God.

  The ringing was subsiding, slowly. The pain was not.

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah.” Ruby reached into her wallet, her head throbbing from the motion.

  “You don’t have to pay me. Let me just take you back to the center of town.”

  Ruby read the meter and handed over some cash.

  “Keep the change,” she said, getting out and stumbling over the curb, nearly doing a faceplant on the cracked sidewalk.

  “Wait! You can’t get out here. I told you it’s dangerous.”

  Ruby ignored him. The driver cursed and drove off.

  She stood there a moment, looking around. This really was a bad part of town. She saw no private homes, only ramshackle tenements and boarding houses. Entire families sat on the stoops, enjoying the warm night. People stared, but always turned away when she returned the look. Whatever this strange white woman wanted in their neighborhood, they wanted no part of it.

  Her head still throbbed, and the ringing hadn’t entirely subsided.

  Ruby looked at the small store a few yards away. The sign read, “Madame Lawrence’s Tea and Sundries.” Ruby didn’t know what sundries were. She hoped it included painkillers.

  The interior was concrete painted a faded green lit by a single bare bulb. Next to it hung a forlorn strip of flypaper—more flies than paper—twisting in the breeze blown by a battered old fan. Two aisles of low shelves were packed with sweets, school notebooks, pens, nails, screws, cheap Chinese clocks, paint, and bootleg DVDs.

  “So that’s what sundries means,” Ruby grunted.

  “It means everything,” a rotund Bahamian woman said from behind a counter covered with newspapers and magazines. The counter stood right next to the door. Ruby imagined her clotheslining any potential shoplifters with her beefy arm as they tried to make a getaway.

  “What are you doing here?” the woman asked.

  This question was not said as a challenge, and carried no hint of suspicion. It didn’t even seem to carry much curiosity. It was more of a statement. Madame Lawrence seemed to be pointing out that Ruby was out of her depth and might need to be reminded of that fact.

  Behind the woman’s bulk, Ruby could just see an electric tea kettle. Tucked in a corner beside the counter was a tiny table and two chairs.

  “Could I get a tea and some ibuprofen?”

  “What kind of tea you want?”

  “Surprise me.” Ruby slumped in one of the chairs, picking the one that had its back to the wall so she could face the door.

  As Madame Lawrence fussed with the kettle, Ruby leaned back against the wall, trying to get a grip. Her eye hurt from where the taxi driver elbowed her, and the pain encompassed her entire head. At least the ringing had stopped. More or less.

  “Do you have a compact?” Ruby asked.

  Madame Lawrence reached behind the counter and pulled one out, handing it to her. Ruby opened it and examined her face. Both pupils had the proper dilation, and she saw only the faintest of bruises forming around her eye. He hadn’t actually hit her that hard.

  Sure felt like it, though.

  She wondered what would have happened if Tim Harris had gotten her with one of his famous left crosses.

  Killed her, no doubt.

  He knew that. He had avoided hitting her head.

  He hadn’t been sent to kill her. So what did he want?

  “Your man do that to you?” Madame Lawrence asked as Ruby returned the compact.

  “No. A taxi driver.”

  “You should call the police. Those unlicensed cabs are a load of trouble.”

  Ruby shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. He hit me by accident.”

  “Oh, sure,” the woman said, opening up a tin and spooning out some tea. “I had a sister whose man used to have accidents like that. Every time he got drunk there would be an accident. Got so bad my sister couldn’t stand it no more. She accidentally stabbed him in his sleep. Now she’s in the pen.”

  An old man came to the door, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, shirt open to reveal a sunken chest.

  Madame Lawrence waved him away. “Get on out of here, Johnny. This ain’t no zoo.”

  The old man stared at Ruby a moment longer, then turned and left without saying a word.

  “Is that Mr. Lawrence?” Ruby asked. If she was going to be stuck with this wom
an’s judgment for the time it took to pull herself together, she should at least try to make nice.

  “There is no Mr. Lawrence. Lawrence is my first name. My parents wanted a boy.”

  Ruby sat silent for a while, head throbbing, heart pounding. She wasn’t ready to face the Maze, not now, not ever. But she had to.

  The tea kettle whistled, and her hostess poured some steaming water into a cracked mug bearing the name of some resort Ruby felt sure she had never visited. Madame Lawrence handed her the mug, along with a little packet containing two painkillers.

  “Smells wonderful,” Ruby said.

  She sipped the tea, which tasted wonderful too, a blend of herbs Ruby could not identify. Ruby downed the painkillers and took another long, luxuriant sip.

  The tea soothed her body. Her mind, however, did not slow down.

  That elbow to the face had been a wakeup call. In her daily round of serving drinks and drinking drinks, working out and socializing, she could forget sometimes how thin was the thread of mortality on which her life hung.

  She was descending into the Maze, and she saw no chance of getting through that without having to fight. Every fight was a roll of the dice. No matter how much she blocked, no matter how much she ducked and wove, someone might land one on her head. One good hit and it was lights out.

  She sighed, closing her eyes and resting her head against the cool concrete of the wall.

  “I must be crazy,” she muttered.

  “I agree,” Madame Lawrence said in a singsong voice. Until the shopkeeper spoke, Ruby hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud.

  She opened her eyes, half expecting to see double vision, like she had for a day after her injury, or see the room as a blur, like she had for a week. But everything looked all right.

  She had lucked out. This time.

  A pair of eyes framed by cornrows peeked over the counter at her. A little girl was standing in the doorway, but was too short to see over the corner of the counter. Ruby winked. The girl ducked out of sight.

  Ruby smiled, feeling a bit of warmth for the first time since finding Richard in the dumpster. It was nice to have some normal human interaction again with someone pure.